5 Famous People Who Went Missing, Then Turned Up Safe…

Every day hundreds of people disappear, either by choice or otherwise. Only a very small number of those people are never seen again, and the majority are found safe and well.
When you are a celebrity, sometimes life gets a little difficult if your life is lived in the spotlight and the need to go to ground is great.

Here are five famous people who did just that and caused all sorts of speculation and worry but were thankfully found safe and well.

5Sinead O’Connor

The controversial Irish singer most famous for her 1990 cover of the Prince song ‘Nothing Compares To U’ and for ripping up a picture of Pope John Paul II on national television.

On the morning of May 15th, 2016 O’Connor left an address in Wilmette, a suburb of Chicago, to go for a bike ride. When she didn’t return, a missing person report was filed with the police.

It has been well documented that 49-year-old O’Connor had struggled with depression and a few days previously had sent rambling posts on Facebook addressed to her children including one to her 12-year-old son who was in the care of a child and family agency in Ireland. She had posted a suicide note the previous November that claimed she had taken an overdose of pills and with a history of suicide attempts friends began to fear the worst.

After being missing for more than 32 hours, she was eventually found in the Morton Grove Best Western Hotel, six miles away and taken to a local hospital for treatment.

4Nick Stahl

US actor Nick Stahl got his big break when appearing in the Mel Gibson film The Man Without A Face and also became familiar to millions through his role as John Conner in Terminator 3: The Rise Of The Machines.

In May 2012, Stahl was reported missing by his recently estranged wife, Rose Murphy. After the separation and the battle for the custody of their only daughter Marlo, Stahl descended into a horrific drink and drugs nightmare and openly admitted that he had serious substance abuse problems in the past.

Stahl had been missing for over a week, and his wife was worried that he might have taken an overdose and said that she thought it might be a case where a body would be recovered.

He was finally found in a downtown area of Los Angeles, notorious for its drug problems. Stahl admitted to his addictions and entered a rehabilitation facility in an attempt to clean himself up. However, just a few days into the programme Stahl decided that rehab wasn’t working for him so checked himself out and went missing for a second time.

After turning up once again, Rose stated that her husband was now attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings to overcome his problems.

3John Stonehouse

Re-elected to the British parliament in February 1974, John Stonehouse was a long-standing Labour minister who had held a high position under Prime Minister Harold Wilson.

A pile of clothes and belongings were left on a Miami beach on November 20th, 1974. It later transpired that these items belonged to the M.P. and it was naturally assumed that he had drowned while swimming in the sea. Obituaries were published even though no body was ever recovered.

On Christmas Eve 1974 John Stonehouse was arrested at a seaside resort near Melbourne, Australia. He had, in fact, faked his own death. He had arrived in Australia on a false passport along with his secretary and mistress Sheila Buckley. The M.P. had hoped to start a new life with her after it was announced that investigations into financial mismanagement of companies owned by Stonehouse were imminent. He had deposited a large amount of money in an offshore bank that he had effectively stolen from these companies.

Locals became suspicious, believing him to be the recently disappeared Lord Lucan. Police were called, and Stonehouse eventually admitted his true identity.

After returning to the UK, he was put on trial for fraud, found guilty and sentenced to seven years in prison.

2Agatha Christie

The famed British writer and creator of the fictional Belgian detective Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple the amateur sleuth.

However, in late 1926, just as her literary career was taking off her husband, Archie Christie, unexpectedly asked Agatha for a divorce and on December 3rd, 1926 the pair quarrelled, and Archie stormed out of the family home and into the arms of his mistress.

Later that evening, Agatha left the house herself, leaving behind a note stating she was planning on going to Yorkshire in the north of England. Her abandoned car was found not far from her home, above a quarry. It seemed that the author might have committed suicide, despite no body being found in the quarry.
Her disappearance caused a sensation in the public arena with newspapers offering rewards for any information that would lead to her discovery.

Eleven days later on December 14th, 1926, Agatha was discovered at the Swan Hotel in Harrogate, Yorkshire. She claimed to have no recollection of what had happened to her since her disappearance. She was later accused of dreaming up the whole episode as a publicity stunt to promote her novels, but doctors concluded she was suffering from amnesia. To this day what Agatha did during those 11 missing days is a mystery.

1Margot Kidder

In 1978 the American/Canadian actress appeared as Lois Lane in the Superman movie opposite Christopher Reeve as the eponymous star of the film.

Twenty-eight years later, after having her glamorous face splashed over adverting posters all over the world, she was found with her face smashed up, minus two front teeth, in a dirty and dishevelled state in the backyard of a complete stranger.

Missing for the previous four days, it seems that Kidder had lived on the streets until she unexpectedly turned up in the yard in Glendale, California. It is thought that her disappearance was triggered by her losing all the drafts of the autobiography that she had spent the previous three years working on; due to her laptop being infected by a Virus.

The shock and desperation of realising there was no way of retrieving the corrupted files led her to enter a manic state, and she later admitted that she had been suffering from bipolar disorder.

Kidder then sought the psychiatric treatment required to assist in her recovery.

Submitted By Paul Galliford